Falling snow
by Aqua111
Summary: December has just started, I felt very Christmassy and furthermore in the mood to write something romantic and fluffy. And since I'm still in the Lien-Da/Xenin fandom my choice of pairing was quite easy.


Author's note: December has just started, I felt very Christmassy and furthermore in the mood to write something romantic and fluffy. And since I'm still in the Lien-Da/Xenin fandom my choice of pairing was quite easy.

It's actually not just one in-story year that the two are together now – it also had been nearly one year ago that I got the idea to write the first slight hints of this pairing in "The Days of Fury" (although that fic still needed several more months to be completed and published). So it's a kind of double anniversary.

End of author's note.

Standing on the snowy hill, Lien-Da watched the bustling activity in the town below her. It was a freezing cold evening but still nearly all people of Echidnaopolis were outside busy with the preparations for their festivity. Was it really a year already? One year since they had to leave Albion and moved back to Echidnaopolis. One year since the surviving soldiers returned from the canyon. Nearly one year since she slowly started discovering her feelings for Xenin...  
Lien-Da remembered the promise she once had made to herself - when she was strong she could stand on her own. Of course she had the two brothers as her bodyguards before but she only had them because they looked impressive - a nice decoration at the sides of her door - not because she actually needed them.  
But then Xenin had stepped into her life and these words had grown distant. If someone ever had told her she would have fallen in love with Xenin one day she would have answered, "Yes, and pigs might fly". And now Xenin himself had come to add, "Looks like rain. The pigs are flying low."  
Since then he always had been by her side, ready to protect her even with his own life if necessary and still he never had given her the feeling that she was weak or in need of protection. It was like holding a weapon or a shield. Neither of them gives you a weak feeling and rather is an addition to your strength. Xenin was both, her living, breathing shield and weapon. And he also was so much more than that - he was her lover, possibly even the love of her life.

She heard steps behind her but she didn't turn around - there was no need to, since it didn't sound as if an enemy was coming closer. An enemy would have silently sneaked up on her.  
"All alone out there on such a cold evening?" a well-known voice silently said right behind her. His warm breath in her neck sent shivers down her spine.  
"Well, yes, I felt like I could have needed some time alone and let my thoughts wander. But I don't really mind if you want to join me in my loneliness."  
She now turned around to face Xenin. Despite the coldness he still was neither wearing cloak nor coat. Either he was never cold or just so proud of being a Dark Legionnaire that he simply ignored it when he was freezing.  
"Who told you that you would find me here?" the Grandmaster asked. "I thought I told no one."  
"The snow. Well, actually it had been some Legionnaires who saw you leaving and told me which direction you were heading. But then it was easy to follow your tracks in the snow."  
Lien-Da smiled. "Guess I could never get away from you."  
"Would you even want to?" He wrapped his arms around her.  
"I don't think so."  
She leaned against his chest. The metal of his body was so warm as if he had been in the summer sun for hours. Probably he really never was freezing. And underneath she heard the beating of his heart. Actually strange to think that under all this metal there could still be something like a living beating heart.  
'Without a heart we would only be unfeeling machines', Lien-Da thought and wondered why something like that had even crossed her mind. Maybe the falling snow made her sentimental.  
"Do you know what they are celebrating?" Xenin asked and nodded at the lit up town.  
"Probably their homecoming. It's been a year since the war ended and they returned from the canyon after all."  
"One year ago..." he said thoughtfully. "Did you know that even the longest living butterflies only live for a year? Guess the butterflies in my stomach are already going into the next generation."  
Sometimes even Xenin could be a romantic - in his own clumsy way.  
"I sometimes wonder why you decided to risk your own life to save mine back then", he then added. "The poisonous gas already started to destroy your lungs and still you insisted on taking a half dead and very heavy Legionnaire with you instead of immediately returning to the camp and get the antidote. I slowed you and Remington down and still you didn't just leave me behind to die in the snow. Could it be that you already had feelings for me back then? But if so why didn't you show me? You never had been someone who held back if the chance for a love affair occurred."  
"You don't know how often I asked that myself back then. Guess I hadn't fully realised it until that moment when you saved me from the explosion. Do you know what people say? 'When someone lies dying lovers finally understand.' I think my feelings just needed a push and an explosion was more push than I ever could have wished for."  
"Same for me. I also needed Kaya-Na's kick or else I would never have been able to show you my feelings. That gives the term 'falling in love' a whole new meaning. We both were actually kicked on top of each other."  
Lien-Da laughed. "Yes we have definitely fallen for each other."

For a moment they only looked into each others eyes. Nothing more was heard than the sounds of the night and the festival in the town. Words weren't always needed for saying something. Then Lien-Da leaned closer, closed the little bit of space that had still remained between them. Their lips met in the frozen air. Snow was softly falling around them.

One year ago… The war had been over then but the battles had continued and maybe it was only a matter of time until the next would start. Both didn't know what the future would bring but it also didn't matter. It was the moment that counted and the certainty that they would be there for each other.


End file.
